Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Cap expert Troy Chapman breaks down Vikings offseason options

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Matthew Coller is joined by cap expert Troy Chapman of Over The Cap and the Cap & Trade newsletter to breakdown the Vikings offseason options. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and a new guest joining the show for the very first time. It is Troy Chapman and we'll try to get the order of different things that Troy brings to the table in regards to salary cap information. You work for overthecap.com. You are a great follow on Twitter X at Texans cap. You have the sub stack, which is cap and trade and the YouTube. And it is all an absolute must for people to understand the salary cap better, which is going to be our main goal here to talk about Vikings issues this off season dealing with the salary cap but welcome to the show Troy great to have you and thank you for being a resource to help me constantly understand better

what is going on in the NFL cap no problem Matthew thanks for having me on you know I'm a big big admirer of your work as well from all your YouTube work and the sub stack that you know sub stacks kind of a gotten to be a pretty big thing, so definitely excited to be here with you. Well, I appreciate that. And I've been kind of, if people don't know actually, still on the show because they're still finding it on YouTube, there is a newsletter, purpleinsider.football,

that people should go check out. And yours is capandtrade.football as well. Yes, got to use those custom domains. For certain social media purposes, to make it actually show up and look like an article. But that's not what anybody's here to hear about. It's the salary cap. So listen, there's a lot of different issues with the Vikings

because they've created a ton of cap space for themselves, but they also have a lot of different players that they need to resign or that they need to go in free agency and get to fill spots. And the biggest issue is surrounding Sam Darnold. So something that is talked about a lot for Sam Darnold is the franchise tag. And I think that's a really good place to start because there's differing opinions on whether the Vikings should franchise tag Sam Darnold or not. In my opinion, Troy, I think that they should because they should have interest from the outside world to trade for Sam Darnold. But then the transition tag gets tossed around. Where do you stand on this of how, how they should handle Darnold? Because

they can let them just walk. They can transition tag him. They can franchise tag and trade him, or they could do some combination of that, sign him to a contract and keep them. There's so many different ways that they could go with the Sam Darnold decision. Yeah, that's definitely an interesting decision point coming up for the team here. And there's definitely, like you said, there's definitely multiple paths they can take on this the franchise tag like we say if they apply that other teams can negotiate with Darnold but if they would were to sign him to an offer sheet it would take two first round picks to get out of it which probably seems a little bit unlikely when from that perspective so maybe it's uh like we've seen it like last year with the Chiefs or the Jerry Snead.

You do the tag, trade him for whatever, maybe a second or third rounder, and then the new team signs him to a new contract. So that's definitely one path. It takes a little bit more money up front. The franchise tag is lower. Still don't have an official number, but upwards of $40, $41, $42 million. The transition tag works a little bit different, and that's definitely a path I think the team should really look at.

There is no compensation back if a team matches, but it allows Darnold to go see the market, and it allows the Vikings the right to match any contract that he signs. So maybe Darnold has a specific number in mind, goes to the market and realizes that number is not there and gets a lower offer sheet. And it's a number that the Vikings are willing to take on and resign him and retain him and just move forward about their day. So I think the transition tag probably makes the most sense in my mind. The trading on the franchise tag, teams have done it. I don't think it's a – philosophically, I disagree with it because there's some language in the CBA that says that you're supposed

to negotiate fairly in good faith if you put somebody on the franchise tag, but that seems to kind of go out the window. I know the Vikings are a pretty straightforward organization above a majority of the teams out there, but the transition tag would probably be option one, letting him walk. The letting him walk thing, I don't know if that's a really optimal path because I think a lot of folks will just naturally assume you're going to get a compensatory pick for him. But we see the Vikings have quite a bit of cap space. Now, yes, they do have a lot of players to retain, but all it takes is one big signing

from an external player and you're canceling out Sam Darnold and you're getting nothing at all. So do you want to dabble with the tag and try to get a day two pick out of him maybe that makes sense but i i think the transition tag let him see the market let him seek his own value try to match it if if it's not what a match then that's the only backdraw with that one there's no draft compensation back on that as well so it's just a really sharp uh short edge to kind of tread there. And hopefully the Vikings can kind of

get a sense of where things are settling once they get back from the combine where there's no negotiations there at all whatsoever. And maybe they'll have a little better idea of what's going on with Sam Darnold after the combine. But that's probably the three paths that are available to the team. Yeah, I mean, when I see those executives talking to each other at two o'clock in the morning out

at different restaurants, I'm sure that they're talking about their golf games, where they want to play when they go on vacation later in the summer and nothing about their teams at all. Now let's kind of go through those a little bit one by one, because you mentioned, you know, the franchise tag and trade has been done a number of times. The last time it happened with a quarterback was Matt Castle, who did briefly play for the Vikings, but he went from the Patriots to the Kansas city chiefs. That's kind of all we have to work with in terms of a value. And they got a second round pick back. I think that would be phenomenal for the Vikings, but there's some issues there. I mean, that's

if they are done with Darnold, they're good with moving on with JJ McCarthy. They don't want Sam Darnold back at all. Then you can franchise tag and trade. The only concern a little bit there is if there's any delay in trading him, getting him from one team to the next, any negotiation there, you could get into free agency and then not have that cap space, which I think a timing issue with that. And how long do you have to have some sort of bidding war with him? It can be just a little bit tricky there. I think if they franchise tag him, it's a pretty sure shot that they have a trade set up for when it's ready to go, uh, because they don't want to get caught holding the bag.

Let's say that they do though. Let's say that they do get caught with, we franchise tagged him with the idea to trade him, but then trades fell through teams got other ideas and you're stuck with him. I mean, this would even apply to the transition tag. Let's say nobody gives them the offer and you have him at either. I think the transition is expected to be somewhere 35 million, 36 million. That's still a huge amount of cap space. How would the Vikings go about working around that if he did come back on one of those franchise tags? Because I think this is the biggest fear of Vikings fans aside from Darnold in the playoffs doing what he did. But if he were to come back, they went through many years of Kirk Cousins making too much money to spend a lot in free agency. How would the Vikings go about dealing

with a big cap hit for Sam Darnold for the next season? Yeah, I guess it kind of depends on the mindset of the team. If they're fine with just trying to swallow that one-year deal and then reevaluate after the season, then yes, you can take that $40 million through free agency. It eats into the $50-something million that the team has right now. At that point, you're probably going to have to start maybe have to do a few restructures with Jonathan Grenard or Hawkinson, O'Neal, players like that, Andrew Van Geekle.

You start pulling in some of those levers just to free up some cap dollars, defer them to the future, which is not too big of an issue for, in my eyes, with the salary cap continuing to grow year over year. So those are some of the levers, the easy levers that you can pull with the basic restructures. If the team was more, now they know that, okay, nobody is willing to, let's say they did the transition tech. Okay. Now we know nobody was willing to put an offer sheet on him. That tells us the market is quite a bit lower. Maybe we can work out a two- or three-year contract

that will give him similar types of money, but we can structure it in a way that benefits the team salary cap-wise. So, yeah, he would be due $35 million on the transition tag, but maybe we can negotiate a new contract where he still gets that 35 million but it's structured in a way where the cap hit is only 12 or 13 million dollars this year and you're saving 20 million on that extension while still having a similar type of cash outlay on the player so that would probably be the most optimum path for them but if they needed to swallow it they could just pull probably pull some levers that they have available to free up some cap dollars to push forward. I don't know about you guys, but I tend to have an impulse buy problem. I'm always signing up for

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reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to rocketmoney.com slash purpleinsider. That is rocketmoney.com slash purpleinsider today. Okay. If they were to transition tag him, that would also be a sign to me just trying to read tea leaves on each different move right that they want somebody else to come make that offer so they have the option to decide if they like that offer or not and this would actually be in line with quesia da fomenta and how he's done business which and uh you cover the texans so you know withil Hunter, they had a line in the sand with Daniil Hunter, where they said, we love you and think you're an awesome football player, as you saw.

But also at 20, I think he made 28 a year. That's just too much for what we want to do with that position. They swapped edge rushers and it worked out wonderfully for everybody, but they just had not that high of a number on a guy who had neck injury and maybe, uh, at least when he was here with Brian Flores, it's not exactly the fit they're looking for. They want somebody who could drop back in coverage and things like that.

And then they let him move on. And even with Kirk cousins last year, I am certain that they had a number on Kirk cousins. And they said, if they go over that number, then you're not coming back as our bridge quarterback to the next guy. I wonder what that number would be, though, for the Vikings. Because to me, if they transition tag him, it means let's see what somebody puts out on him. And if it's a bigger number than we want, then we're going to let him walk. But I'm very curious about what the number would be that he would get on the transition tag. What I've had in my head is three years, 120 million with something like 60 or 70 million

guaranteed. But I think it's really fascinating to try to weigh the market because did he actually lose money on those last two games? Are the Raiders or the Giants or some team like that really desperate? I don't have a great feel for it because I think that there's enough teams that really want him that somebody might go crazy with an offer. Yeah, I think this draft class might benefit him a little bit with the week class. And as always, there's just a lack of any kind of quarterback talent and free agency. So I'm not sure that I can quite get in line with the $40 million deal, $40 million a year deal. I would probably look more in the Baker Mayfield, Derek Carr type area

in that 30 to 35. Take your structure of three years, $9, take your, take your structure of three years, 9,500 million with 50 to 60 million guaranteed might be something I think the market might see him as. I don't know that specifically built around the idea that he cost himself money in the last two years. I just, from my outside perspective, I feel like you, I would look at Darnold as, okay, he excelled in this specific system. Are those traits and that kind of output and performance going to carry over into my system, whatever my system may be?

And if it's not a similar system that Kevin O'Connell has shown, then is it going to carry over? And that would probably be one of my concerns as another team but if you're running a similar system then you probably have a little more comfort level with bringing them in so it kind of just depends on what other teams are looking like out there and it scheme they're running versus that what kind of cash outlay they're willing to put in because we know like certain teams may not have as be as cash heavy as some other teams. So there's a lot of factors in there.

But that's kind of where I would think the market might settle in as maybe a little under, maybe that mid $35, $33 million per year. And I think a three-year deal makes a lot of sense for everybody. Darnold is still young by all accounts, despite the number of years he's been in this league. So that would give him a chance to see the market again relatively quickly. That would be my kind of viewpoint from an outsider's perspective. Yeah, the one thing that I kind of keep coming back to

is just how much Atlanta paid for Kirk last year. And I think, think about all the reasons there were not to pay Kirk cousins. I mean, he was coming off an Achilles. He has one playoff win in his career. The Vikings had paid him a bunch of money and never been able to work around it. And still they went nuts with $45 million a year and a hundred guaranteed over four years. And here's what always, how I always think of things is through the owner's eyeballs. And we know Arthur blank on the older side, wanted to get back to the playoffs. Well, the Vegas Raiders, I mean, their owner cannot be happy with what are

we on 22 years without a playoff win. And then in New York, their owner is telling their GM and their head coach. yeah, you guys are on the hot seat. So good luck this off season. I mean, that to me screams like, okay, we've got to outbid somebody for Sam Darnold. What do you make? You referenced it, but the rest of the market for quarterbacks, Daniel Jeremiah was kind of hinting on the internet today that he thinks Matt Stafford

is going to be gone. That's weird to me because they just came close to beating the Eagles who won the Superbowl. And I'm not sure if you want to get rid of your quarterback at that point, but maybe they've got another option like Sam Darnold, if they think that he could step in. I think aside from that though, it's very interesting because it's like, what's the best worst option? Is someone going to pay Daniel Jones? I saw that's rumored today. Is Russell Wilson playing in the league? Is Justin Fields? Like how do you weigh what all of that means to Sam Darnold? Well, I think with Darnold, you have an established performance, especially with 2024. Those other players that are mentioned with him don't have the repertoire,

the performance outlay that was shown in recent history compared to those other players. So I think that puts Darnold a step above with those other players, let alone age and just what they've done in the league so far but i do i agree with you that all it takes is two teams to ruin the negotiations and all of a sudden you're getting a 10 spike on this player's value and they're just out trying to outbid each other next thing you know you're paying sam donald 45 million dollars like kirk cousins now we'll say kirk cousins has a fantastic agent who uh who is just very good and we've at kirk cousins i try to get off on a tangent kirk cousins is going to go down

in a pro the hall of fame of contracts yes but uh i i think i think yeah it takes just two teams there are some teams that are on the hot seat with their front offices but i just i feel like there's such a a gap in quarterback contracts it's all the guys that are in you know 60 down to 45 million then there's like two three guys in that 30 30 million dollar range and then it drops down to the backups at 12 so is he in that 30 million dollar range just had to wait and see how the market shakes out i could be completely off on this but that i mean that's just kind of my evaluation on him now that is a evaluation without discussing with other people what the market thinks of him so yeah it could easily another team just could be raring to

go and we'll be happy to offer him a three or 120 million dollar deal and it wouldn't even surprise me in the least bit if that happened so it this is probably one of the more fascinating specific players because we just don't see quarterbacks like this hit the market we just don't and so i'm really fascinated to see how this just plays out between how the Vikings handle it, what the market and how they view Sam Darnold and how it just all shakes out here in the next three or four weeks. And because the Vikings under this management have not leaked stuff in these types of negotiations, I'm sure you noticed during Justin Jefferson.

I have a saying on the show. We all find out together with this leadership because we walked into a press conference one day and they were like, oh yeah, guys, we extended TJ Hawkinson. We're like, oh, okay. Because they just don't put it out there for the insiders. So you have Locke on forest saying, hey, they might actually want him back. And then you have Jeremy Fowler saying, well, they might use the transition tag. And at some point we get to, well, they might anything at this point. And what it really comes down to is how comfortable they are with where JJ McCarthy stands because, and this is the next scenario I want to talk with you about. And it's the most exciting one for all the Vikings fans, which is if Darnold goes one way or the other, let's say they trade

him for that second round pick and the Vikings then, you know, recoup some serious draft capital. You're feeling better about the draft and you have 50 something million dollars to work with at the same time. They have a lot of things to do. So I want to talk about different markets for positions, because this is something I've been putting some effort into. The offensive line market and the defensive tackle market, I think got a little bit of a boost themselves by the Super Bowl because you can interpret that both ways. One, wow, it's great to have a defensive tackle who can go murder people. And two, you better have the offensive line. Otherwise you're going to get murdered. Right. And yet I look at both markets as being unimpressive in free agency. And I think

that the guys like Milton Williams and Oso Digizua are about to get wildly overpaid. Let's, let's start there with the DTs. What is your assessment on that because I think the Vikings should play the defensive tackle a little carefully here Milton Williams was playing next to Jalen Carter one of the best D lines like there's a lot to kind of bolster his production he only played like 500 snaps I think that is the position that gets the most overpaid in the NFL free agency this year yeah I think you're spot on just from the most overpaid in the NFL free agency this year. Yeah, I think you're spot on just from the free agents. Free agency as a whole is pretty weak this year. And the defensive tackle group has three players between Osa, Dallas, Milton Williams and Levi from from Detroit.

I think those three players are going to earn the biggest contracts out there. And Milton Williams, like you said, he played next to some fantastic players. So you have to look at that and put that in as part of your evaluation. Was he playing as good as he was because he was next to fantastic players, or is it really derivative of his own work and you know that'll be I think his valuation across the league is going to be wildly different from team to team especially depending on the scheme that you use and I trust me I'm looking at defensive tackles too because Houston needs needs a big defensive tackle in there the only reason why I flinch a little bit at thinking the defensive tackles

might get overpaid is the defensive tackle group in the draft class sounds like it's a pretty strong group. So could that drive down some of their, their potential valuations? Maybe it's hard to say, but I think that's going to be an interesting group to watch. I think Milton Williams of the three players, I think he's on that Javon Hargrave path where he's going to get a lot of money and I think a team might regret it a couple of years into the deal. So in free agency, it's rare that you get any kind of surplus value in free agency anyway. So that would kind of be my read on the situation with those specific players.

What they're going to get, I mean, that part is going to be a little more tricky. It could be upwards. Do they clip the $20 million mark? Probably in some aspect aspect they probably will at the the whole defensive tackle uh interior offensive line markets have shifted upwards together and for good and for good reason as you see players on the interior defensive line making more and more money teams are having to compensate by signing guards and centers to more and more money to guard those guys because their teams are starting to find ways to get pressure on the quarterback from the interior versus the high-priced edge players. But you've got players that are in Dexter Lawrence at 22, Leonard Williams at 21, DeForest Buckner at 23, Daron Payne, who played

off the tag last time, 22-5. I think that's probably the market that those kind of players are going to settle in. And you're not going to get surplus value on free agency, but teams just know that it's just the cost of doing business when you sign a free agent. You're going to pay top dollar for probably 80% of the return. Well, and that's the thing that when we talk about the

draft, so often when we discuss drafting a wide receiver, an edge rusher, a tackle, part of the conversation is if you hit on that guy, you get four years of him making a small amount of money. And we only ever discuss this with quarterbacks, but it actually matters across the roster. If you draft a star at those positions, how about Will Anderson? My goodness, what's his real value versus what they've had to pay him over the last couple of years, or even a Jordan Addison. If Jordan Addison was in free agency right now, someone's paying him what, like $18 million a year for 900 yards receiving, but instead rookie contract. So that number going up for DTs makes it a much better play

because if the Vikings draft one at 24 and the guy turns out to be a star, then you're talking about surplus value of 16, 17, $18 million over what that guy would make in free agency. That was not the case. Even just a couple of years ago that there were so many guys like that on the guard side i have leaned toward everyone wants trey smith of course they do why wouldn't you want trey smith he's a great player i've leaned toward the side of not looking at 120 plus million dollar guard if he even hits the market we don't even know if he's going to if he hits the market i think that one's risky. He's playing for the chiefs. They've had a really good interior line altogether.

He's got the best quarterback. They get rid of the football quickly, and he's going to cost so much more because he plays for the chiefs than all the other guards. And I'm not totally convinced based on the numbers that the difference between him and some of the other second tier guys is $10 million. I think with those guards, it's kind of been like the Robert Hunts are getting overpaid. The Jonah Jackson's overpaid. I think that's fine because the DTs are killing everybody. But I also think that some teams are wildly overpaying for players that are not wildly better than the next best

group. If that makes sense. No, you're, you're spot on. I, the offensive line in Houston has been in shambles for the past probably two years now. And there's a lot of money sunk into that line. And there's a lot of fans here in Houston that want a high-priced offensive guard, and I want nothing to do with Trey Smith. I think that would probably just be a huge – he's probably going to reset the market at guard, and I don't want to be the team that's paying him that amount of money and probably not even get it close to that return. So I think in the guard guard market there is some value to

be had i think and once you drop down a tier and you get into the james daniels mckay you know beckton if you want to get a little bit older brandon share for kevin zeitler if you just need a one-year kind of a stop gap kind of situation uh i do like some of the value with you know mccurry out of baltimore and meredari out of Baltimore and Meredith out of Las Vegas. I really think this is probably going to be the position group where teams can strategically spend seven, eight, $9 million on a player and get that plus a little bit more in return versus going for the, the 20, 20 plus million dollar Trey Smith. I think there is just a good handful of guards

into your offensive line players. There's probably about six or seven of them in there that I think you can find probably on 75 cents on the dollar and probably get a dollar back in return. I totally agree. And I feel like this is the exact way the Vikings should go with that position and also guard in the draft and the back end of the first round might be a good place to go with that as well. And if you're going to the Vikings really need to possibly three new interior

offensive linemen, especially with the way Kevin O'Connell wants to play with downfield routes and stuff like that. And if you're going to do that, putting it all into one guy and then patchworking the other position still leaves other teams, the ability to just attack where your weakness is. And we've seen them do that for years with the Vikings. Even when Dalton Reisner was playing fine and pass protection on the right side, they're just sending all their stuff to the left side.

Like that doesn't really solve the problem. You need to prevent pressure. And just a small comment, having seen the Vikings play the Texans, it blew my mind that they still were falling for the same stuff in week. What was it? Two, three that they, three that they played the Texans, same stuff in the playoffs, the same blitzes the same stunts it was like i think maybe offensive line coach could be as valuable of a position

for the texans but that's just uh my take from the outside you're preaching to the choir there we're hoping uh nick cayley will bring over some new uh protection rules that that the former offensive coordinator didn't have and well well me, it can't get any worse. I say that, but hopefully that's not the case. But yeah, I think you're on the right path there. I think you can find a good guard or even a center for that matter. There's two or three centers out there if you need a center. I don't think y'all need a center, but there's some good into

your offensive line. We'll just keep it at into your offensive line. There's a good group of free agent value there. There's a good batch of draft guys on day two, early day three that you could come out of free agency and draft with probably three solid players to fill probably two holes and have a good swing option behind them that can continue to develop up. And so I think that's because I'm, I'm on the same path there. We, we need that here. So I think that's, I think you're right on it there, Matthew. I think that's, that's the way to look at this.

A little bit of the problem is you and I, I could also grab like 10 other podcasters who cover other teams and they'd be like, yeah, we need guards. Offensive line is shorted across the league. Everybody's looking for offensive line. And that's why you rarely see anything in free agency. That's why the free agency group, you know, I think Trey Smith is hitting because KC's got a lot of money wrapped up.

KC generally is not big spenders in free agency. They're good at retaining their own talent, but at some point, I think they even know that what it's going to take to keep Trey Smith just doesn't make sense. Right, exactly. I like going through these positions here because they're all so interesting and have different dynamics, and the Vikings have free agents at all of them uh how about running back last year I think is a total anomaly Derek Henry and Saquon Barkley these hall of fame talent players both hitting the market at the same time somehow

the league doesn't value them that much and doesn't give them great contracts which I guess I understand when you look at yards per carry is such a deceiving and strange statistic because Saquon Barkley goes and almost doubles his playing with way better everything. And it just tells you that the running back only has so much control over what's happening. Yet at the same time, if you get a freakish talent with everything in front of them, oh my gosh, you're talking about legendary type of seasons. And that's what we saw from Henry. And that's what we saw from Barkley. But this running back market does not have that.

I'm a little intrigued by Rico Dowdle. I'm a little intrigued by JK Dobbins. And that ends the list of people that I'm interested in for the Vikings. So now here's Aaron Jones. Last year, Aaron Jones is buried in this free agent class and Joe Mixon got moved as well. And so he gets a very small contract for a guy with his track record and his performance in the playoffs. Then he carries the ball a gazillion times, has his second highest yards from scrimmage

of his career. But he's also of an age that is terrifying to even bring a guy back on a one-year contract. Where, where do you see Aaron Jones fitting in here? Cause I could also see now everyone's talking about, Hey, you got to run the ball and this top running team wins the super bowl. I could also see a lot of other teams saying, you know, we're kind of screwed in the backfield, like Denver. We will pay you more based on what you just did than the Vikings. I also think he wants to come back to the Vikings. I just think that he has this distinct advantage this year in free agency that he did not have

last year. Yeah, I feel like this free agency class can almost include Aaron Jones in this comment where it feels like it's a bunch of rv2s out there and it kind of will kind of split this in two things here so i think the for the running back that uh contract market the value market's just kind of risen over the last couple years i feel like it's just because we see so much cover two out there, got less players in the box. It's just a slow transition, whereas like four or five years ago,

the whole nomenclature of running backs don't matter, blah, blah, blah, is because teams were loading boxes, and you could only do so much with your running game. And now that teams have transitioned back to having another safety back deep, one less player in the box, running backs are starting to have a little more success. Plus, you're starting to see, I think, the linebacker size in general is just smaller than it was five, six, seven years ago. So I think all that kind of brings it together

while running backs have a little more success. So therefore, contracts are coming back up in line a little bit. They're not where they need to be. They never will be, but they're getting better. And Aaron Jones, like you talked about, 31. I think he's 31 right now. So I think there is some running back talent in the draft as well. But we saw the news that Minnesota and Aaron Jones were able to push back the boat the

void date on his contract back to the you know the day before the league year starts on so that put his void date I think on March 11th so to me that tells me they're getting closer to a number that they like I know they did that last year with the defensive tackle and uh so maybe that they're getting to a number where they're like what that number would be it kind of i feel like that apy of seven million that he was at this past year probably makes pretty good sense going forward i think it's just more of a give you a little more guarantee two-year structure it's going to be a fully guaranteed first year we might have a small guarantee in the second year just to give you some protection beyond that but maybe it's that two-year 15 million dollar type

deal with you know seven or eight million dollars guaranteed last you know on his previous contract it was seven million but that was fully guaranteed on a one-year deal they had they added the four void years for salary cap purposes so they do have the room to you know work with the confines of the contract structure that's already there so i can see it making sense that he that he is brought back by them and 31 out on the open market i think he's probably have a better market with Minnesota than he would outside. So that's what makes me kind of put all that stuff together. It looks like there's a good chance that he remains in Minnesota. I do think it makes a lot of sense for both sides. I mean, even if you're Aaron Jones, you probably would welcome the idea of the Vikings drafting a middle

round running back and mixing and matching a little bit more. I mean, he took a whooping last year. And if you're the Vikings, when you look around, you go, well, who is a better option? Is what Khalil Herbert a better option or somebody down the list? Probably not. And then you bring the leadership element, the chemistry element. You just have to have another option of somebody who's a little more explosive at this point in their career because Aaron Jones did not rip off a lot of big runs last year. I think he had a good season. They also refused to use him in any short yardage, which helped his yards per carry. That's why that stat can be so goofy. It's like Jerome Bettis, his career yards per carry is 3.8 or 3.9.

How many times you think he ran at the goal line? How many times you think he ran on third and one every time? So if you never have those, it makes you look a little better than maybe you were. I think that that's a type of player that I would be very concerned about bringing back because of the age, but I get it. If you're pairing it with somebody else, I can't come up with something better. I kind of like Dowdle a little better because he's got no mileage, but you also don't know the guy, what he brings to the locker room, how he's going to fit with what you want to do. Whereas you really know Aaron Jones. Now the corner, I want to talk about the corners because they did the same thing with Byron Murphy, where they moved that date back. And maybe you can explain that a little more for, before we dive into it, like

what exactly that means. Cause I, in both podcasts, I tried to explain it. I feel like I bumbled through it a little bit to me. It just is a, like the big takeaway is it's a sign that they want to work with the guy and like, let's not worry too much about the other details, but that's why you're here is to worry about the other details. So explain what it means with Byron Murphy that they move that void date back. Yeah. So he originally had a void date of it's the classic 23rd day before the lead in the new league year starts. So it's always, that is always the day before the franchise tag window opens.

So his 23rd day was Monday, February 17th. The contract would have voided out on that day. We didn't learn about the void date moving until today because the league office was closed on Monday for President's Day, so things kind of leaked out a day later. So essentially they moved that date back they agreed to move that date back to march 11th and it keeps all the future proration in place it his deal would have had all that money i think it was 4.2 million and pr-rated money in 2025 through 2027 would have accelerated up into the 2025 league year.

Now with that void date pushed back, those $1.4 million per year over the next three years of pro-rated signing bonus money will stay in place if they sign a new deal versus having all that money lump up into the into the immediate cap year so it saves them a it saves them some cap dollars from that perspective if they are able to work out an extension if they are not then the same thing will happen come march 11th that money accelerate forward he'll become an unrestricted free agent able to sign with a new team come march 12th so i think it's kind of the same situation that we talked about with Aaron Jones, where if they're moving that back, then it gives the impression that the two sides are pretty close to a deal.

The cornerback market is not as bad this year. It, you know, there's got Carlton Davis out there. Travarius Ward, if he's still looking to play. I know he just wants to get out of San Francisco altogether. Kendall Fuller, DJ Reed, these are all decent players. I know Stephon Gilmore, who's the ageless wonder. I don't know if he's going to continue playing or not,

but there are a few decent quarterback to cornerback two type players out there I think Byron Murphy's probably one of the top three cornerbacks available on the market so what does that mean for his actual value going in I don't think the draft class looks that great this year so I think that favors Murphy quite a bit i think he could easily get up over 17 18 million dollars a year approaching i don't know if he gets all the way to 20 but i could definitely see him in that jalen johnson le jerry sneed tyson campbell type range in that 19 million dollars a year type type arena which to me is just too much and this is as a Byron Murphy junior enjoyer I mean I think that he's really good and I think he's been a great fit with Brian Flores he made plays on the football last year uh six interceptions is hard to repeat though from year

in and year out and you're just talking about such a big investment on another one of those weak link type of positions where they have Makai Blackman coming back after an ACL injury and they're empty. They have nothing else. So do you sign? It's very similar to the guard thing where it's a, do you sign several players who you think could be good or even put your money into someone like DJ Reed, who I think has a larger track record of being the guy than Byron Murphy, who it was really the last two years, but this is the best year of his career he's coming off of, which is always a dangerous time to invest so much in a player. Now, if you're new England, if you're the Raiders, if you're one of these teams that stinks and just needs dudes somewhere, okay. Overpay. It was like when the Jags, if you're one of these teams that stinks and just needs dudes somewhere,

okay, overpay. It was like when the Jags, everyone freaked out when the Jags paid Christian Kirk a bunch of money. It was like, guys, they don't have any players. They're going to have to pay somebody to come there. Somebody's going to do that for Byron Murphy, I feel like. And I think that should price out the Vikings a little bit. And it is interesting. Just as a little side stop off here is interesting. I just, there's a little side,

uh, stop off here. The conversation, the void years discussion gets bounced around a lot with us in these off seasons, because the Vikings had to do a lot of this to make it work as they were cleaning up the Rick Spielman mess from the previous. That's how they made $71 million in dead cap actually work for this year and signed Grenard, signed Cashman, etc. But in the future, I'm not sure how much of that they want to do. Like they've sort of moved past that and avoided it, a little bit like that. There's a little bit of that in Sam Darnold, but can you explain like why teams do that other than just a cheat? Cause I feel like I've treated it as I hate when they do it because that means it's going to screw you down on the, down the line, but it doesn't all, it's kind of like borrowing against the future, but you get interest in a way too. So it comes up a lot. I'd love you to explain how it works. Yeah. I, to me, I would look at it more as a dollar, a cap dollar. And today is worth, is worth less than it is in the future. You know, it's actually in my video series, I've,

I've got one on void years coming up here probably in about four or five days. And I have an example where the team creates almost a million dollars in cap space just by using that mechanism of the void years. But you just got to the point where you just have no no roster flexibility when it comes to your salary cap so i think they're they're fine to use in specific cases when you when it makes sense and then you can also build off of those and use june 1ations. That's what the Eagles are really good about doing is building that structure into those kinds of situations. But it's just a way of deferring money to future years and you're hedging against a rising salary cap. So if I can push $10 million of cap dollars into the next year, so $10 million is whatever percentage that is of the cap, you know, 2.5% this year. Next year, it's only going to be 2.1% of the salary cap. So that's

where you find that hidden value in the rise in salary cap. But I agree with you. I don't think you just need to keep swiping that credit card at the machine over and over and over and next thing you know you've got eight or nine players with 78 70 80 million dollars of dead money that are not going to be in your roster anymore i think those are for extreme situations teams that are just trying to make a swing but i think the vikings he the quest he did a fantastic job of cleaning up and getting this team back exactly where they need to be there's a lot of cap space this year there's a lot of open cap space in the coming years now like you mentioned before there are

some players that they need to resign but at least at this point now they can be more targeted type players they know that i can spend this money in this player but if i really need this player and the numbers make sense and that player comes available or a player in a trade situation comes available and free agency that a team is looking to get out away from because they're cap trash or cashstrapped or anything. Maybe they had a scheme change, and this specific player is making a lot of money and doesn't make sense for their roster. Now we have room to take those kind of moves on, whereas before,

when we don't have the cap space, we're having to only take on specific, very specific players. So I think you're in a good situation but i think going back to your original question void years are good in certain situations they're good when you need to use them in on a specific player that you know that you can defer that money that you already know that that player is not going to be here next year that's where i think the biggest thing is is more often than not teams will do it when they know that player is not going to be here next year. That's where I think the biggest thing is, is more often than not, teams will do it when they know that player is just going to be a one year deal.

And we're, we're willing as an organization to just deal with that money in the future. And teams are happy to do that. Surprisingly, it kind of shocks me how often teams are just like, push off the future. We'll deal with that next year. And Houston's done it just as much as well as any other team. So they got popped with it on the Dalton Schultz contract last year. They let the void hit, still signed him to an extension, and now they had all that accelerated void money plus his new contract all in one year.

It was kind of a mess, but I think, I think the way my Minnesota's approached it is what you want to do is just here or there, use it sparingly. Don't get too, too much in bed with it. And then I think it becomes a, a tool for you to use to strategically place cap dollars where you need it. Because at the end of the day, the salary cap in my mind is just an accounting function. It's an accounting function of the cash that a team spends. So if you're able to know and place and say, I can place $8 million here, $6 million in the future on this player, $15 million here and strategically placed money

where I know I can budget around it because of my position groups and what the future holds based on my forecast for free agency and draft beyond this year, then that's where it's kind of starts putting those puzzle pieces together. Yeah. And I think about the timelines and you're always trying to work with them when it comes to stuff like that. So just for example, let's just say that they had gotten two playoff wins out of Sam Darnold and then they had to resign him. Well, at that point, your Super Bowl or bust. So you're going into free agency just saying void year till we're dead. I mean, that's really Philadelphia. It's almost comical. Like when you look at Jalen Hurts, his salary cap page on over the cap,

you just start laughing. Okay. This is insane how they've set this up, but they knew this is our window. This is our chance to win a Superbowl with him. So his cap hit is low for this year and it's not bad for next year. And then they're going to have to deal with some serious issues down the road, but who cares? They got their ring. And I think the Vikings can, at this point, think we don't have to do that right now. But if JJ McCarthy turns out to be a superstar and then you have to pay him, then you're in a winning window and then you start doing stuff like that.

So I think the quasi Adolfo Menta does not quite get enough credit for this. I mean, he gets credit for the free agent signings and that's kind of a total team effort, but tearing down that salary cap issues, the issues they had before was a nightmare for them. I mean, it was such a disaster because the previous regime was desperate and they knew they were getting fired if they didn't make the playoffs. So they just say, who cares? This is going to be someone else's problem. And that was Casey's problem for three years here to get to this point. So anyway, one more position group to touch on with you. And I really appreciate all the time and all

the explanations is fantastic. That's the safety spot. And this is another situation where when you win 14 and the team all likes each other and everybody is buddies and they like guys in the locker room that sometimes you're the one that's going to overpay. And this is Cam Bynum for me. Cam Bynum is a really good player. I can't praise him enough, but everybody has a dollar figure. And when I look at the safeties, I see five, six, seven players that I would take on the Vikings based on their histories. Justin Blackman is a guy that I would take from Indianapolis. Justin Reed, Trayvon Morig, I've mentioned on the show as a guy who's a needle mover. Javon Holland is somebody that Brian Flores drafted and might love

as the next type of Harrison Smith player. I think that loyalty should only go so far in this business. And with Cam Bynum, if someone else wants to give him 15 plus, they should probably let them do that and just let him be happy with his tons of money and move on. To me, I don't know how you view this. Maybe his number gets driven down because there are other safeties. I think that he's a guy you have to really draw a line in the sand with because there's so many potential options that could bring a little bit more to the table.

Yeah. I think we're going to see a little bit of a return renaissance for the safety for agency group especially after what we've seen the last two years i think buying them i i'm pretty much in agreement with you i think that's going to be a player that you're fine to let walk for 15 million dollars a year and then go back and look in the market and find know, whether it's Mooring out of Vegas, like you mentioned, Justin Reed. Hufanga out of San Francisco can make sense in certain situations. So I think there's, you know, even if you need a box safety like Jeremy Chin or a stopgap like Justin Simmons,

I mean, I think, and Justin Blackman, I think, is another option that you mentioned. I don't know if you want to get into the Javon Holland sweepstakes. I think he's going to probably take a shot at the top of the market. But there's also some, you know, I think it's a very solid safety group, and I'm with you. You let Bynum walk. I don't know that you want to get in bed with him for

that much money and just take that money and reassess it and redistribute around the roster, whether it's another safety at that similar price point or bringing in a safety at a lower price point and redistribute some of that money across the way. I'm with you there on his market. I do think he's going to see a pretty decent market. Just his volatility and performance year over year is probably going to be my biggest concern for him, even though he's still young. He's 26 years old. That's the sweet spot for those skill players like that, but I'm with you there for sure. I think if a guy is going at that position 15 plus, then you have to be a difference maker as in you are the reason that the needle moves. And if you're comparing Javon Holland at 20, Cam Bynum at 15, that is an easy choice for me. I'm going Holland. I think he is that type of

player. And if they lose Harrison Smith, then they have to go into free agency looking for someone who's a difference maker like harrison smith has been for so long and not necessarily and again i i don't ever want to insult cam bynum he is just such a great person and player for this team so i just always want to say it yeah right he's a sidecar type of player he's a deep safety that is going to succeed or fail based on what's going on around him more than he is going to be the reason your defense succeeds or fails. That position kind of works that way. See Anthony Harris from a few years ago. Anthony Harris is franchise tagged and two years later, he's out of the league.

Talk about, I know that was a wild one man franchise tag and then was like getting just one year prove it deals and then just disappeared that was wild yeah that's what it means to play next to 22 because i mean through his through his career he played next to i think might have been ro Blanton early on. And then it was Anderson Dayhoe UDFA, who is a good player, but again, like this is an Andre or maybe a late round pick played in the UFL or an, or a UDFA for them, but a signing to be a special teamer. And then his job ends up being taken by Anthony Harris, who was a special team or UDFA. And then Cam Bynum comes in as a cornerback who moves to safety and takes the job and has been really good. I mean, I think that, you know, the borderline hall of fame player next to those guys has had a lot to do with it. So in this case,

they might lose that player and they might need another needle mover. And that's kind of the way that I've looked at that. Uh. Before we wrap up, these have been awesome conversations. And I know that all Vikings fans have really wanted like deep dives into free agent markets. I just want to know your number one storyline that you're looking at player situation team doesn't have to have anything to do with the Vikings. Let's just Sam Darnold should be at the top of the discussion. We talked a lot of Sam Darnold's move that off the table. What else in the league is like the biggest thing that throughout your day,

you're finding yourself thinking about going into this big time off season stuff. I'm curious to see how this, this wide receiver market shakes out there. There's a few names out there and I I'm really curious to see how this wide receiver market shakes out. There's a few names out there, and I'm really curious to see what Cincinnati does as a whole. That team has been very stubborn with their contract structures. Beyond Joe Burrow, they don't guarantee money beyond the first year. They do a roster bonus in the second year. It's a very plain Jane contract structure mentality. They don't have as much cash as like

the Philadelphia's and Atlanta's and the Rams of the world, but they have plenty to cover their needs. But how they handle the T Higgins situation, Jamar Chase situation, got Joey Burrow on the radio and on air giving out contract restructure recommendations and how to, you know's more so I just want to see how if Mike Brown and Duke Tobin are willing to get out of their comfort zone, do something a little different to try to keep this trio of fantastic players together. I think it can be done. I even think they can keep Trey Henderson if they just want to pay like we talked about with the void years. And if they want to get into the option bonus game and start pushing some prorated money down the line and just really utilize Joey Burrow's prime years for the next two or three years, I think they can make it work. It might be a little painful come 28 29 but that's probably going to be one of the the more interesting things for me just because it's a big thing with the salary cap and how they manage it and see if see if they get a little uh get a little outside their comfort zone i'm always year over year

always fascinated to watch the saints and that big old mess over there just to see how they dig themselves out of the hole every year uh kai harley the he does the salary cap over there he's just a magician with this stuff and it's just every year it's they're they're screwed they're they're not gonna be able to do anything and then they find a way out and we'll see what happens there but i do kind of feel bad for Kellen Moore. I just feel like that's kind of a – I wouldn't have wanted to take that job. I'll say that. I just feel like that's a placeholder job for somebody else

once they get it cleaned up. I really don't have too many other specific situations. Outside of Houston, we've got a lot going on here. We went from having one of the better wide receiver rooms in the league to all of a sudden now we have almost nobody because Stephon Diggs tours an ACL, Tank Dell's leg explodes, and I'm not even sure he's going to be able to play at all this year. So all of a sudden this team needs a wide receiver. And do they go out and spend money on it like a Chris Godwin

or do they try to target this in the draft? Do they go low cost with Demarcus Robinson? I'm just kind of curious to see how that plays out here in Houston and, of course, how they manage the offensive line. There's some different decision points that Nick Casario has ahead of him with there. But, I mean, they've done well in the draft. They had another fantastic draft this past year, and the draft's always going to be just one of the most exciting components

of the offseason in general. This free agency as a whole I don't think is very sexy. I don't think it's going to be a big, exciting thing. There'll be a few players, but I don't know that we're going to see a lot of franchise tags. I think we might see more transition tags for once, which are rarely used. I think we might see a few transition tags here over the next 10 days or so.

Maybe that'll include Sam Darnold, but that would probably be the few of my watching points. I really am fascinated to see how Cincinnati navigates this. It sounds like they're going to franchise tag T. Higgins again and try to buy themselves a little negotiating time, which once you franchise tag a player, you have up until July 15th to negotiate a contract extension with that player. So they're just going to have some time to negotiate and try to,

try to work something out. And I just really want to see if they get outside of their comfort zone and do something a little bit different. And well, they are on the Viking schedule. So I have also been keeping track of this. You don't want to face T Higgins and Jamar chase. You'd much,

well, they're probably going to, they are going to franchise tag him. That's already been reported. So they're going to face T Higgins and Jamar chase. You'd much, well, they're probably going to, they are going to franchise tag him. That's already been reported. So they're going to face T Higgins more likely than not, but the rest of that roster, that defense is a mess and they've got a lot to work with. Their cap and trade is the subs that cap and trade dot football.

Love that. And cap and trade on YouTube Texans cap on Twitter. And everyone already uses over the cap.com for absolutely everything so we love over the cap.com here and I love this conversation Troy Chapman great job on your first run through uh Purple Insider here but absolutely will not be the last I really appreciate you coming on breaking it all down and after the Vikings have a bunch of contracts to look at we'll do it again how about that yeah no anytime man give me give me a shout we'll we'll chat it back up maybe after uh after all the dust settles and see uh what minnesota end up doing because

it's definitely going to be fascinating to watch to see how the team navigates uh free agency this year they've got a lot of money that they can spend it's curious to see if they actually do spend a lot of money uh teams are teams a little bit different cash spending's a little bit different there's three-year windows that they have to navigate through and this is year two of the current three-year spending window so yeah i'll i'll be ready to come back whenever you're ready man i appreciate the time appreciate appreciate all the information. And like I kind of mentioned at one point, the YouTube channel, we're doing a NFL Salary Cap Explained series. So we're just doing an episode at a time covering a different topic that's probably going to end up being about a 20-video playlist

when it's all said and done. I think tomorrow night I'm going to record episode 11 and 12. So, you know, make sure everybody checks that out. And if you watch that whole playlist, you'll be able to understand probably 90% of what you read on social media, what you read and articles and what you see when a player signs for this and dead money this and void you're that you'll you'll have a better understanding of it all if you uh take a look at that playlist it's i try to do it at a high level explanation not try to get too far down

in the weeds that there's examples in there there's excerpts from actual player contracts and uh you know encourage you to check it out and, uh, we'll keep plugging along, but I appreciate it, man. It was, I had a great time chatting with you, man. I enjoy all your work and look forward to doing it again. And just let me sign off on the series, which was actually what inspired me to ask you to come on. So I should have mentioned that earlier. Again, cap and trade. The YouTube series on the salary cap is for me. Fantastic. I know I have a lot of cap nerds and offseason nerds that love this show.

So make sure you go check that out. It's a must. Thanks so much, Troy. And we'll talk to you all again soon. Thanks for listening. Thank you.